Obviously a lot of research was done was done by the author, and this was very interesting and dishy read! However, I would have preferred the structure to have been categorised by mistress, instead of by themes/qualities they shared. I say this only because it was quite difficult to keep track of who was who, as we were constantly bouncing around Europe every few pages or so.

That's my only criticism though! I must say I learned a lot from this book, including the usually undiscussed relationship between the King, mistress, and queen. Also just how much work went into being the official mistress!

I am writing this review several months after reading the book, honestly, I can barely remember it. It took me a minute to remember the book and now I can only remember a handful of the stories from it. I remember that I really liked it at the time. It was very informative but clearly very little stuck. That being said, I think it is important to read it and other such books because it is important to remember the women that helped shape our history. As I write this, more comes back to me, and I am reminded that it is important for me to read less fiction. (LOL)

I purchased this book immediately after finishing Herman's [b:Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics|16179|Sex with the Queen 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics |Eleanor Herman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1166719842s/16179.jpg|641167]. Sex with Kings is well written with incredibly clever writing, but it is not very well organized. I found it to be a bit repetitive. This book would have worked much better if it was written chronologically, which is luckily exactly how Herman organized her next book, Sex with the Queen. It was unfortunately quite difficult to follow the kings, queens and mistresses that were covered. However, I can easily forgive Herman for this, as it is more of her editor's fault. This book is history at its best. Absolutely absorbing.

Being a mistress is hard work. I didn’t have to read Sex with Kings to know that, but I suppose a little European context never hurt anyone. Basically, marrying a queen for a womb or an international alliance led kings to pursue mistresses. Many mistresses accepted the thankless jobs because it was an opportunity to increase their stature even for very short periods of time. Sex, money, power—the game hasn’t changed that much in several hundred years. But I thought I was going to read a totally different book. I was hoping for stories of women who parlayed their dalliances into some grand shift in fortune. A couple did some good in the world, a couple went on to live happy lives with husbands and children, but most were utterly ruined. The last thing I wanted from this book by a woman who has committed her life to writing about women was to read about how many beautiful but stupid, ugly but good in bed, sinister but desperate women were literally thrown away after their reign as the royal mistress. It was hard to read. The author claims from the outset that there’s very little record of the royal mistress but since she took enough license to write about the smell of their perfume or what a mistress might have been thinking, she could have been gracious enough not to belittle and belabor her subjects with the same trite descriptors we use to create hierarchies among women today. That’s my fault though, for wanting something different. I guess having sex with a king or the husband next door will still ruin a woman. I’m going to have to write the book where that isn’t the case.

Listened to this on audio. The narration was really good.

I didn't love this book though. It had a lot of interesting information but it was difficult to keep track of everyone and who was who with how the book was organized. Each chapter deals with a certain aspect of being a mistress to a king and within that chapter there is a lot of different women both mistresses and queens and the kings.

Also, while this is stated to focus on European kings and their mistresses, which it does, it's overwhelming mainly french kings and their mistresses. There are other's mentioned but it keeps going right back to the french monarchs.

I enjoyed the content of the book but the organization was wrong. I think she should have focused on one mistress at a time instead of jumping around. the names got confusing very quickly